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Ozymandias Direct May 2009 12-May-2009 At 10:16:28 AM brendan

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Ozymandias Direct is one the proudest lines in Australia weaving its way up the North wall at Mt Buffalo. The line heads through roofs, clean corners and sweeping offwidths. It was a climb I had wanted to do for a long time and one of the best aid lines in Australia. Partners changing there minds, a couple overseas trips and the fact you cant just duck down there for a day conspired against me. So when my friend Jason Robertson told me he was keen to head up the wall as well. The plans were made and we were there

The drive down from Canberra was boring to say the least; I left in the afternoon and arrived at buffalo in the evening. When I arrived I found the campsite was closed, bummer. Alternative accommodation was found, a quick phone call to Jason to tell him where I was camping and some sleep. The next morning we woke to frost covering the tents and I found Jason curled up in his bivy bag next to the car. We had a slow start and headed down to the disabled lookout to mess around on the short aid routes below it. After a day getting our systems dialled in and teaching Jason to aid climb we headed back to our campsite to pack.
An early morning and another frost we headed down to the “defender of the faith” abseil, someone had left some static there to extend the chain for the anchors so we used this to make the ropes easier to pull, two more abseils and we were on the ground, another two abseils down the lower comet ramp and that brought us to the base of ozzy. We sorted gear out and Jason lead the first pitch, that went fairly smoothly and I jumared up to start the second pitch, already its late in the afternoon and we know we’ll be pushing it to make big grassy, I start up the second pitch which is a corner, which takes mainly small cams, rp’s and peanuts. By the time I got to the top of this pitch I can see we are not gunna make it to big grassy and not wanting to lead the crux pitch in the dark I fix the rope and we rap to the ground. A small incident with the haul bag and we are on the ground cooking and ready to sleep.
In the morning we jumar the lines, I haul the bag to the top of the top of the second pitch and Jason leads through onto the third pitch, after a couple of hours he makes it to Big Grassy and starts to haul the bags. We set up our bivy gear then, because we are running behind on time we decide to do the easier left hand pitches then traverse back into Ozzy direct. I lead up the pitch easily enough which took cams and some wires, then Jason lead through then traversed across via two bolts to the belay of Ozzy Direct, its dark now as we fix the lead line and rap back to big grassy. Now we were told that big grassy comfortably sleeps two, I they may have meant two midgets, I think as I lay down with my feet dangling over the edge.
After a night of pretty crappy sleep we wake up, jumar the lines and I haul the bags to just under the roof, Jason leads through the roof and it took some pretty good rope tricks and messing around for me to clean it, Its my lead again so I traverse left from glenhill bivvy and make my way up the little roof, clipping fixed gear then start up in the offwidth, this was not much fun and required a downclimb to free a stuck rope, then it was simple cam jugging to the hanging bolt belay. Jason had the next pitch and he lead up the crack then free climbed the chimney. He set up the haul line to some bolts on the left so we didn’t have to haul the bags up the chimney, I got the last pitch and by this time its dark again, the last pitch was some cam jugging but the cams are right at the end of there expansion range, lucky we had an extra number 4 so I could use that as pro before I got to the final couple of droopy carrots bolts, than tying the line to the railings I hauled the bag and we were on top. A late night walk out to the cars and a short sleep and it was back to Canberra